TAMPA, Fla. — Battling cancer is a long and difficult fight.

But one Bay area non-profit is making sure that nobody has to go through that fight alone.

Ruth Walker knows cancer all too well.

The disease took her brother Douglas. And then, a few months ago, it came for her husband Darryl Anthony.

“When my husband got diagnosed with cancer, and we’d been married for just a little bit over a year,” Walker said. “When we got results that said he had esophageal cancer.”

When Darryl was hospitalized, Ruth was there with him every minute of his battle,  encouraging him and praying together.

And more than once the nurses would ask a favor.

“And they’d say, ‘will you talk to that person over there because they just found out that they have cancer and they’re dealing with it,” she sadi. “It’s a hard situation because for them and they have no support.”

Together they formed an organization and called it “courage through cancer” - support for people facing cancer alone.

Darryl died in June.

But Ruth’s work goes on with her non-profit with her dream that by 2020 the Darryl Anthony house will become a reality.

“Like the umbrella for courage through cancer and it’s supposed to be able to help everybody,” she said. “To help them financially, appointments, taking their medication or they just want somewhere to cry.”

Ruth’s mission is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

“I think about what I have to do,” Walker said. “I’m here to do it, so let me do it let me help in any way I can.”